To say that the last several weeks have overwhelmed me would be a nice way to put it in a nutshell. There are so many things I love about being a single mom. Many of those have to do with how great my daughter is and how much of a control freak I tend to be. Matt (BIL), let’s be gentle on the comments here! What I hate about it, these days, is that I don’t have anyone to share part of the emotions of parenting this amazing little princess. Sometimes it’s as tough to handle the joy and love and pride as a single parent as it is the worry, stress, and frustration. That may not make sense, but that’s how things have felt lately. I’ve never been one to let stress roll off my back, but lately it’s gotten to be harder to handle. Luckily my trip to visit my sister came at exactly the right time. Chloe and I went to visit her family at their new house over the Labor Day weekend. They took such great care of us! My sister helped get my talk through so many things that have really been weighing on me, and I can’t explain what a huge weight it lifted from my shoulders. We have not had such a great time in a long time. A lot of thanks go to my BIL for staying with the sleeping kids while we hit the stores after bedtime and even held out while we finished of some delicious carmel apple pie and coffee afterwards. The time with my nephews was great, too. We spent a lot of time in the inflatable pool on their deck and as I’ve mentioned before Chloe loves the water so she was in heaven! Makes me tempted to try the 9-hour-each-way drive again in a month or two, even if we can only spend two days there instead of three! One day my vacation leave will recover from my extended maternity leave and we can spend an actual vacation somewhere, but for now we’re just enjoying the long weekends we’ve been lucky enough to take this summer. That’s probably enough rambling for one night. A little more substance so maybe Laura’s right and I’ll get the hang to this blogging thing one of these days and it will be therapy for me, too. Now here’s some photographic evidence of the fun we had, some just cute pics of Chloe, and one of the finished product of my bathroom remodeling project. I’m still trying to decide how much accessorizing and decorating I want to do in there probably including painting, but for now I’m enjoying how clean and bright it looks and feels.
I have a degree in Chemistry so I love that Chloe played in these goggles for almost an hour one morning!
Playing on the toys in the mall, I wish our mall had something like this.
Taking a break to talk on her cell phone.
I love this face
Guess who learned what it means when I tell her to “say cheese”?!
After pictures of my bathroom, you can see the before pictures here below because I can’t figure out that fancy link to a previous post that everyone else does, and I’m pretty tired right now so I’ll tackle that another day. No more wood windowsill in the shower!!! Also, no more gray tile and no more bathtub without a shiny finish on the surface!
Before…
